


After the Phoenix

by 35_leukothea



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Civil War AU, DeanCas - Freeform, Destiel - Freeform, Episode: s06e18 Frontierland, F/M, Gen, Implied Destiel - Freeform, Implied Relationships, M/M, old west au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-01-27 14:37:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1714208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/35_leukothea/pseuds/35_leukothea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summer, 1861.</p><p>After deciding to masquerade as a boy and run away from her little town of Sunrise, Wyoming to join the Civil War on the side of the North, Joanna Harvelle's great escape plan is nearly complete when a newcomer arrives, toting a wild-eyed accomplice and an aura of blood and death with him. With the outlaws' appearance forcing her to stay and protect her home, Joanna quickly learns that Winchester's motive may be a bit more complex than she initially thought—and a bit more deadly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first proper AU I've ever done, actually. I'm not too fond of them, but this one seemed like so much fun. So, here you go! Enjoy the West.
> 
> Based on this:  
> "Imagine cowboy!Dean strolling into a bank, tipping his hat back, pulling out his Colt and with a charming smile, saying 'Mornin’, folks, this is a hold up.'"
> 
> By the way, this is NOT a relationship-heavy fic. Samjess is canon, but destiel/deancas is implied, in the background, if you will.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we set the stage.

Everybody knew who he was, but nobody knew a thing about him. Nobody knew where he came from, who gave him his absurd name, where he'd picked up that crazy-eyed accomplice of his, when he'd started this madness, or why he'd come to Sunrise, Wyoming in the first place. They just knew that if Dean Winchester showed up at your door, with his cocky smile and pretty little pistol, you were done for. It happened to family, neighbors, friends, enemies, but you never thought it'd happen to  _you_. 

Until it did, of course.

There were a multitude of ways he might go about your murder. He could shoot to kill, but that only happened if you were lucky enough to be unimportant, in his eyes. Being shot through the heart was quick. You weren't worth his time then. Or, he could rip you open and gut you with that strange, jagged knife he had, with its worn wooden handle and mysterious patterns. It looked like it'd lived a long life and seen a whole lot, that knife did, and more than just plain old death. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that Winchester knew how to get a man to talk. Talk about  _what_ , now, that was a good question, but nobody knew why he did anything at all, really. Half the people he took were good men and women, or at least decent. Weren't they? Sure, everybody'd done something of dubious virtue once or twice, but what was it to him? Most the townspeople were convinced he had some sort of god complex.

Joanna, on the other hand, had different ideas.

Joanna Beth Harvelle: brown-eyed, blond-haired, heart-breaking beauty. Been in Sunrise all her nineteen years, and never once accepted a marriage proposal—never once even  _considered_  one. No, Joanna had other ideas for herself. She wanted to do something with herself. She wanted to fight in the war.

What? What's that? She's a  _girl_? Oh. Well. Minor setback, hm?

Of course, she hadn't told anyone her plans, especially not her mother, because if Ellen Harvelle were to somehow find out her daughter wanted to fight in the South's ludicrous war, she would have probably had her skinned alive and tanned for saddle leather. And in fact, Joanna herself didn't even know exactly how it was going to work out, since she'd had to make adjustments when the outlaw came to town. Couldn't exactly leave her hometown completely undefended, could she? Not that anybody knew, but she was a better shot than most grown men. Comes with hanging around an old drunken gunmaker for nearly two decades. 

If anybody was a greater subject of rumor in Sunrise than the two outlaws, it was Samuel Colt. The most common thing Joanna heard about him was that he was crazy—which was, of course, completely, one-hundred-percent true. The second most common thing she heard about him was that he had made a gun that killed ghosts, and built a bunch of churches and a railroad down south a bit in the shape of a star. That was...less believable. To say the least. Most people in Sunrise had never left before, so hardly anybody had seen what was really down south a bit. As for the ghost-killing gun, well...that was even more ludicrous than the South's war. But ludicrous was Joanna's specialty, and as far-fetched as it may have been, she liked the idea of ghosts. There was little doubt in her mind that these rumors had been started by Samuel himself, because some of the stories he'd told her were right up that alley. He liked the attention, probably. That was all. So when she heard that Samuel had seen a man with hair blacker than night and eyes bluer than the high-noon sky entering town on a stallion white as an angel's wings, she didn't quite believe it. In fact, she didn't believe any of the rumors she heard about that man or his partner until it was a little bit too late.

 

* * *

 

"Momma!" Joanna shouted up the stairs, nearly falling over as she hopped around on one foot, holding a piece of bread under her chin and lacing up her boot with her hands. "Momma, I'm going to Jessy's!"

"Well, you better keep track o' time this time, an' be back before your shift starts!" Ellen yelled back, sounding like she was equally preoccupied. The Harvelles owned a saloon, and she was already late. "That bar ain't gonna wait itself!"

"I _know_ , Momma, that was an _accident_ ," said Joanna, exasperated—there had been _one_ occasion on which she had forgotten her shift while at the Moore's, and her mother wouldn't let her live it down. "I'll be there!"

"And water the horse on your way out!"

" _Momma_!"

"Fine, fine. Jus' get outta here before I come the hell down there and find you myself."

Joanna rolled her eyes, stuffed the rest of the bread in her mouth, then grabbed her hat and practically ran out the door. 

Joanna probably spent as much time at the Moore's as she did at old Colt's place, which was saying a lot. She and Jessica had known each other for  _ever_ , and she was like the little sister she'd never wanted but somehow got anyway. Jess was a few years younger than herself, and with their similar hair and eye color, they probably could have been sisters. Other than that, however, the two women were more different from each other than a birdie and a perch. For one thing, Jess was  _engaged_ , due to be married to her fiancé Sam in July. (Personally, Joanna had absolutely no idea why one would want a July wedding when the Wyoming summer turned deadly in May, but whatever.) For another, Jess had not been raised by Ellen and William Anthony Harvelle, and actually knew how to live properly. Jess was uncommonly good at common things, and Joanna treasured her baking like life itself (she knew for a fact that Sam did as well). On the other hand, as kind and practical and lovely as she was, she also didn't take shit from anyone, and had more than once called Joanna out on her whining about having to spend too much time at the saloon, or about the boiling summer weather, or about the latest stupid gossip that she pretended not to care about. Jess didn't succumb to those silly little indulgences, and for that, Joanna admired her. Jess could see straight through most lies, too. _  
_

She did not know of her friend's plans to leave Sunrise.

For a while, Joanna had been avoiding Jess because of this, but she could only do that for so long before arousing her suspicion, so it was on this fine June Tuesday morn that she had decided to go see the Moores. It was dry and brutally sunny, but she made the trek almost halfway across the whole town on foot in her long dress anyway. When she arrived at their house, after what seemed like an hour, Sam and Jessica were out sitting on the wooden porch steps. They both looked a bit distressed, Joanna noted as she approached.

"Jessy!" she called briskly, and Jess looked up abruptly—the expression on her face immediately changed to one of joy. "Jessy darlin', I haven't seen you in days." Then she tipped her hat jokingly, as if she were a boy. "Morning, Sam." 

Sam laughed and tipped his hat in return. "Morning, Joanna. Things been busy down at the saloon?" 

"You bet," she said, hoisting up her skirt and sitting on Jess' left as she moved to the center of the porch to make room. "Did you hear Theodor's horse threw another shoe? Loose nail nearly took out his eye." 

"Theodor's horse is more hazard than it's worth," muttered Jess, shaking her head. "Sam and I were just talking about the man that Mr. Colt claimed he saw enter town a few days ago."

"With bright blue eyes, riding that white stallion?" Joanna said teasingly.

Jess frowned at her. "It ain't a joke," she said stoutly. "The water supply was broken into last night, and the west wells' ropes were all cut."

She stopped laughing abruptly. "What?"

Sam nodded. "And it wasn't even subtle. I'm surprised you haven't heard about it. Somebody actually walked right in and shot old Harper."

Joanna was shocked to say the least. Nothing happened in tired, dusty little Sunrise from the day it was founded, and now this? She tried to express some sort of intelligent concern, but all that came out was, "Is he dead?"

The crease in Jess' brow conveyed her undoubted distaste with this phrasing, but all she said was, "Yes, he is. Bullet was found clean through his heart."

"What'd Sheriff Mills say? Can they tell what sort o' gun it came from?"

Sam glanced at his fiancée with something in his expression that Joanna couldn't read before saying, "They think it's from...well, from one of Mr. Colt's, actually."

For a moment, she said nothing. "That doesn't tell us anything really, does it?" she asked. "Lots o' folks have a Colt gun. Not like they're rare or something. Suppose it is a bit suspicious, though—Colt claims to see a stranger entering town and a few days later Harper's shot with one of his guns. You think Colt sold him something?"

Sam shrugged. "God knows," he said, as if that ended the matter.

There was a short pause. Then, Jess stood up and brushed her skirt off. "Come on, let's take this happy chat inside. I guess we've gotta start being careful, now that we've got ourselves an outlaw, and you never know who's listening."

 

* * *

 

The three of them got situated inside and chatted with the mister and missus Moore for nearly an hour longer before Sam declared that he very unfortunately had to go to a council meeting at the town hall and would be back as soon as he could—he was rather quite involved with the government of the Nebraska territory, however small and however sparsely populated it may have been. Most of what he did was related to "that ludicrous war" and the territories' efforts to be annexed by the North. One day, he and Jessica hoped to move to California. (Joanna had almost no idea what she wanted to do with herself beyond the next few years, so whenever conversation of the future came up, she usually ran her sorry ass away from that as fast as she could to avoid nosy questions.) She and Jess saw Sam out and stood on the porch a few more minutes before she too decided she'd best be going. 

"My ma'll be wanting me home before I have to work, to do the washing up and work the horse a bit," she explained, and Jess, being her usual kind, compassionate self, easily understood. "Keep yourself safe, Jessy."

"Same to you, Joanna. Good seein' you!"

She waved over her shoulder as she started back down the dusty gravel road, pulling her hat a bit lower over her eyes to shield them from the midday sun. For a few minutes she debated actually doing whatever chores Ellen had probably at some point told her to do, but then decided that the horse was more important at this point. Gotta get him his proper exercise, right? When she arrived at her house, she tacked him up inside his pen, which was right out back, by the water trough. It was looking a little empty, she thought—and, naturally, from this observation she almost instantly decided she would go and get a bucket or two to refill it. There was a well only a few minutes' walk away, of course, but this  _was_ a perfect opportunity to go look at the wells on the west side whose ropes had been cut.

Joanna always did like to keep a clean nose.

"Alrighty!" she said to the horse energetically as she fastened the girth around his barrel, then pulled the bridle over his ears and forced the bit between his stubbornly closed teeth. "I hope you're awake, sir, because we are about to go for one hell of a canter." She led him out of his pen and mounted him sidesaddle from the ground. And then, they went for one hell of a canter.

It actually was pretty exhausting, at least for the lazy old stallion. The ride to the west side of town was not a particularly long one, but it was a straight one, meaning that Joanna could even gallop him the entire way without turning a single corner—in other words, they never slowed. By the time they'd arrived at the southwest well, she had completely forgotten that her initial goal had been to bring back water for the trough. No, the only thing she was concerned with at this point was finding more out about what had happened last night at the water supply, which was directly east of the wells. She wanted to know more about this strange man Samuel kept saying he'd seen. She wanted to know who shot Harper. She expected it to be a bit simpler than it seemed—after all, almost everything was, certainly almost every crime, with the way people dramatized everything. She expected that, but she didn't have to like it. Maybe she would be pleasantly surprised.

She tethered the horse to a wooden pole near the water supply building and walked to the first well. She found nothing too interesting: the rope was cut, the bucket was missing. She looked down into the dark waters below but saw nothing of interest. The part of her that was still a little childish contemplated throwing a rock in to see what sort of sound it made when it hit water in the tiny, narrow space. She picked up an angular stone by her boot and turned it over in her hands once or twice. Then the other part of her reminded herself that she was nearly two decades old and about to run away and illegally join her country's civil war at risk of being found and killed because she believed in the cause enough. She did not throw the rock.

So, well number one. Nothing of any particular notice.

The second well was just as disappointing. The rope was still cut, the bucket was still gone, and she still did not throw the rock.

(She did eventually chuck it at a tree, though. She got tired of holding it.)

At the third and final well, she became slightly frustrated at the lack of anything interesting. Finally something had actually  _happened_ in this town, and the crime wasn't even that remarkable, aside from Harper's death. It did  _not_ live up to Samuel's stories at all. She turned on her heel, ready to head straight back home, when suddenly, somebody practically appeared out of thin air to the side of her and— _thud_. 

"OW!" she spluttered, brushing her hair out of her eyes and spitting out a mouthful of dirt. She'd landed face-forward on the ground when she and the stranger had collided. "What the—?"

"Oh, no," said a deep male voice, sounding extremely upset. "Oh, I'm so sorry, madam, I just—I don't know what happened, I—here, let me—" He held out his hand and helped Joanna to her feet.

"Hey, you gotta watch where you're going!" she exclaimed, brushing off her skirt. "You keep on running into folks like that and you'll—"

Silence.

For a moment, the two of them simply stared at each other, the man staring because Joanna was staring, and Joanna staring because this man had blue eyes, very blue eyes, bluer than she had thought was possible. She broke his gaze for a split-second, long enough to glance at the rest of him. He had a shock of dark hair, and his clothes were dirtied by something that looked like tiny, stiff pieces of white thread, like from a horse's coat. 

She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could form any proper words, the man turned tail and ran. Didn't say a damn thing. Just ran, west, out of town and out of whatever amount of trouble was about to befall him. And even as he did so, Joanna just stared. After a few seconds, she turned away, ready to go back to her horse and go home, but glanced over shoulder one last time, to make sure that man wasn't some crazy hallucination. Sure enough, his footprints and the rising dust from his sprint were still there, but he himself had disappeared, as if the desert had swallowed him whole. 

"You know, that might have been a murderer," she said conversationally to the horse. "Perhaps I should have kept the rock."


	2. Bone Orchard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dead men don't discuss robbery plans on hallowed ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, guys, this is where I start using a lot of 1800s western slang, so if you see something that is clearly lingo and can't tell what it is from the context, I recommend you look up old West slang and see what you can find. (It's not that hard to tell what they are, though.)

Over the next few days, Joanna had a constant, uncomfortable feeling that she was being watched.

Not that she wasn't, of course. Practically every man in town that was even remotely her age stared at her if she so much as poked her nose out the front door. She was pretty used to that sensation. In fact, they'd only stopped doing the same to Jessica since she got engaged, and even then, well...there are some creepy sons of bitches out there, huh.

But this wasn't the same sensation. It was somehow worse, more menacing, making her neck prickle and the back of her ears itch. At first she thought something had bit her, or that her hair was just dirty, but Ellen didn't see any red spots and nothing changed after she washed. She felt less like she was being stared at and more like she was being observed, as if her every movement meant something. But she told herself she was being silly, and was just worried about the blue-eyed man, because she felt it even when she was alone in the house, or behind the counter at the saloon where nobody could be behind her. It'd go away after a few days, it would.

But more than a few days passed, and she'd gotten so used to the sensation at that point that for the most part, she ignored it completely. In fact, she barely even thought about the break-in at the water supply unless somebody else brought it up—until that Sunday afternoon. She was at Samuel's house, discussing physics and gun recoil, when there was a knock at the door.

"I'll get it," he said, annoyed, getting to his feet surprisingly easily for someone of his age and taking his dear time to open the door. "Yes?"

"Mr. Colt?" said a male voice—Joanna couldn't quite tell who it was, and the door was blocking her view. "I'd like to speak with you 'bout a gun you mighta sold not too long ago."

There was a short pause, but then he just sighed. "Fine," he muttered. "Yes. Come in, sit down."

Samuel turned to go get his book of sales records, and the man stepped inside. When Joanna saw him, she recognized him as the town deputy, somebody Clarence. He was pretty new to Sunrise, actually, one of the many that had come a few months back when the appeal of the Nebraska territory had apparently skyrocketed. He had an expensive hat and looked very self-important. She did  _not_ like the way he eyed her, like he was sizing her up for something. The itching on her neck came back.

"And who's this pretty little thing?" he asked, condescending, and Joanna glared at him.

"She's my niece," Samuel called from the other room, which was not strictly truthful, but not difficult to believe either. "You lay a finger on her and her ma'll have your hide, so I suggest you keep your distance."

The deputy's cocky expression instantly dissolved into an appalled one, and Joanna audibly swallowed a laugh. "Sorry, sir," she said innocently.

Clarence huffed and sat down heavily in the seat across from her. "S'pose I'm a fool to think you ain't married, huh," he said.

She shook her head. "No, sir. Not married."

He glanced up, surprised. "Really? A thing like you, an angelica?"

"Yes, sir. Though I've gotten a good amount o' proposals in my day, I have."

He looked at her like she was crazy. "Well then watcha  _waitin'_ for, miss?" he said incredulously. "Quit beatin' the devil 'round the stump!"

Joanna frowned at him. "You say that like it's my obligation to actually accept one o' those blowhards," she said, sounding carefully offended.

Clarence instantly realized his mistake and hurriedly opened his mouth to fix it, but before he could make an even greater idiot of himself, Samuel returned with an enormous stack of papers and dumped them on the table right in front of him, making him jump. "Right then, Deputy," he said. "What am I looking for?"

"Ah, one moment, Mr. Colt," he said. There was an uncomfortable silence in which the deputy put his hand in his coat and dug around in an inside pocket. He pulled out a few coins, a piece of string, a thimble, and a loose button before finally coming up with what he was looking for. "This is what we managed to salvage," he explained, handing Samuel what looked to be a bullet fragment. "It went through his heart, but hit something metal and shattered."

For a moment, the old gunmaker simply stared at it, eyebrows raised and lips pursed, before he burst out laughing. Joanna hid her own smile—there was no way that'd be enough to tell anything at all about the bullet's origins.

Clarence seemed slightly terrified. "Uh, M-mr. Colt, sir?" he asked tentatively. "Mr. Colt, w-what's so funny?"

Samuel just shook his head and handed him back the bullet, still chuckling to himself. "Sorry, Deputy," he said, "but I couldn't tell you what kinda gun that shot was from any more than your horse could. Is this really all you got?"

He flushed. "Yes, I'm afraid it is," he admitted, shifting uncomfortably. "But cantcha at least tell if it's one o' yours?"

At this, Samuel smiled pityingly, and Joanna saw sardonicism in his eyes. "Dear man," he said sincerely, "what bullet in this town  _isn't_ one of mine?"

 

* * *

 

Joanna started home that evening around six. She had taken a detour from Samuel's house to go to the general store for some salt (and  _damn_ was it expensive), and had then been stopped on the street by Mrs. Singer, with whom she chatted (rather against her will) for at least ten whole minutes. As much as she loved Mrs. Singer, the woman really was a bit garrulous when she was nervous, and she certainly was very much so, what with the break-in at the water supply. Joanna was getting a bit tired of the whole thing, and often found herself thinking that it was probably just another petty crime, and had nothing to do with the man Samuel saw and may or may not have sold a gun to—then she reminded herself rather sternly that Harper was dead and whoever had done it wanted a whole lot of other people dead too, since they'd cut off supply of water from the west wells too, and weren't particularly choosey about who else suffered. It was a lot more serious than it seemed on the outside.

And indeed, Mrs. Singer kept her so long that she realized she'd have to make  _another_ detour if she wanted to get home in time for dinner. Not that Ellen wouldn't let her have dinner if she was late, of course, she'd just have a fine time yelling at her. Unfortunately, this detour was one she always hated: it was through the cemetery, or the "bone orchard," as the cowboys called it. Cowboys were a funny lot, with their Mexican clothes and crazy jargon. They did do everyone quite a great service, of course, out on the plains where the herd animals could go anywhere they chose at anytime, but that didn't make them any less funny. Joanna liked them. She liked ludicrous.

She did not, however, like the cemetery. She always thought burying people was an odd thing to do, and disrespectful too, leaving them to rot in the dry, red earth while everybody walked all over them. She had once told her mother that if she were to die young she would not accept anything other than being cremated, to which Ellen responded that if Joanna died young she would bring her back to life just to wring her neck. 

Of course, that was before she decided she was going to run away—before dying young became a very real possibility.

The church didn't creep her out as much as the cemetery, but it was still unnerving. She felt like all the saints and angels melded into the stained glass were staring at her and judging her from the windows—because she definitely needed more people watching her—and the art itself just looked...strange. Not to mention churches were always so quiet when it wasn't Sunday morning. She barely ever saw the priests or alter boys, and the only thing keeping her from thinking the place was entirely abandoned on all other days of the week was the sounding of the bells at high noon. Either way, Joanna was not a huge fan. She never went to church—couldn't stand still for that long—and she  _certainly_ never went to the graveyard, except when she had to make an emergency detour.

So you can imagine what went through her brain when, halfway into the cemetery, she heard voices.

She froze instantly. She had no idea what they were saying, but she  _heard_ them, she knew they weren't in her head. They sounded like they were coming from her right.

On one hand, Joanna wanted absolutely nothing to do with whatever was going on over there. Checking it out would mean straying off the path and walking over a bunch of graves—she  _hated_ walking over dead bodies—not to mention getting involved in something that she probably didn't want. On the other hand...hearing voices in a bone orchard on a Sunday evening? 

Joanna liked ludicrous.

Following the sound of the voices, she very carefully stepped over the graves, trying not to think about the fact that she was walking on dead people. There was a statue of some famous dead white man at the far end of the cemetery, and behind it, she could see some vague movement; it looked like there were two people. Then she thought,  _Of course there are two people, it ain't one person talking to himself in a graveyard. Unless he's a lunatic. Do I want to get involved with a lunatic? Oh well._

As she came nearer to the statue, she began to make out the words the two people were saying, and could tell at this point that they were both men. Probably would've been less suspicious if it was a man and a woman, but if that had been the case then Joanna  _really_ didn't want to know what they were doing. She approached quietly as she could, staying well hidden behind the trees, but still found it very lucky that she wasn't noticed as she drew closer and their conversation became clearer.

"—cutting it a bit close?" said a deep voice, very deep. It took her a moment to place it, but she finally realized to whom it belonged—the blue-eyed man.

" _Close_ , Cas?" repeated a second voice, incredulous. His accent was more Western than the first's, but still not a whole lot. Blue-eyes' accent made him sound like he was from Indiana or someplace farther east. "They don't even know I'm here!"

"But they also don't know who really cut those ropes," countered Blue-eyes, and Joanna frowned. What was that supposed to mean? They didn't have any idea at _all_ of who cut the wells' ropes. 

 _Maybe it's about who we think_ didn't _cut them._

"Doesn't matter," said the second one, very nonchalant, interrupting her train of thought. "They will soon."

"It matters if it gets you arrested."

"Aww, ain't that sweet."

"I'm serious, Dean! This isn't a game."

"Everything's a game, Cas. You jus' gotta remember that nobody knows the real rules."

Blue-eyes huffed, and Joanna took a split-second to take in what she'd just heard. For one thing, their names were  _ridiculous_ —wasn't "Cas" short for "Cassandra"? A girl's name?—and for another, they really were involved in the water supply break-in, which meant they had to be involved in Harper's death.

"Either way, 's not like arresting me woulda done 'em any good," said the second one, Dean. "In a couple days, the whole town'll know my name, and I'll walk right outside and announce myself, and they  _still_ won't be able to catch me."

"I don't like this idea."

"And yet, here we are. You sure you got everything down?"

"Yes."

"Alright. Go on."

"What?"

"Show me. We're not gonna take any chances on this one, it's gotta get done, because my act is on."

Blue-eyes sighed; his voice was so low that it was almost more of a growl than anything. It made Joanna shiver, and with that, she suddenly realized that the prickling on her neck was gone. Interesting.

"Tomorrow night," Blue-eyes began tiredly, catching her attention. "We're going to—"

"Why tomorrow night?" the other interrupted.

"Because maybe if they're smart enough they'll connect the two times," he explained. "The relation between the water supply and the bank."

_The bank? Is this a goddamn robbery or something?_

"Very good," the other responded jokingly. "Keep going."

"Tomorrow night," he repeated, "we're going to go to the bank. You are going to go in the front and do whatever you're going to do. I will go through the back and get into the vault."

"And when you're in the vault?" was the prompt.

"I am going to take something out of one deposit and put it in another, using your lockpick," he recited. "But I'm going to leave the second one open so maybe they'll notice that their things aren't really gone. And then I'm going to get out and head back to camp to wait for you."

Joanna would've stared at them if she could've seen them through the tree and statue.  _He's not even going to take anything? What the hell do these two think they're doing?_

"Right then," said the second one, Dean. "Hopefully they'll be too occupied with me to notice you."

"Why? What's wrong with them seeing me?"

"I'd jus' rather have 'em think I'm working alone, you know? Though I suppose that's too much to hope...apparently people have already heard about you." Joanna could almost _hear_  his grin as he continued. "Must've been that blinding white horse!"

"I've already told you, Dean!" said Blue-eyes, sounding as if he truly couldn't tell his friend was joking. "He's my horse, I'm not switching him out just for this. It's not like Bellona's any better."

"Yeah, well, ain't my fault Sable got shot by that damned phoenix."

There was a short pause. "He has a name, Dean," said Blue-eyes, his tone serious again. "You don't have to keep calling him that."

"Nah, that son of a bitch ain't deservin' of one," insisted Dean. 

"Using his name is better than glorifying him as a magic beast."

At this point, Joanna had heard enough. She had absolutely no idea what was wrong with either of them—robbing a bank without actually robbing it? Making sure everyone  _knew_ you were a criminal? Something about calling someone a  _phoenix_ , one of those fiery birds from the stories? She was finished with this conversation, finished with this madness, and certainly finished with standing on dead bodies in a bone orchard. She hardly bothered being quiet as she practically ran the whole way out of the cemetery, and back to the main road. Perhaps that had been a bit too ludicrous.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Joanna felt strange when she woke.

Ellen had had a good old time telling her off after she got home, but she'd barely listened. She was still a little preoccupied with the fact that she just overheard two potential murderers discussing a robbery in a place of religion. She had just put away the salt, taken the beating, and gone straight to bed.

Now, recalling whatever madness had happened yesterday, she told herself she was going to have to get used to it if she wanted to do anything with herself. She wasn't even sure what about it bothered her most. Maybe just... _everything_? Or maybe the fact that something was actually happening. Nothing happened in Sunrise— _nothing._ And then all at once, somebody was dead they'd got two outlaws on their hands.

Joanna knew the sheriff. Hell,  _everybody_ knew the sheriff. Everybody knew everybody. Sunrise, Wyoming, grand population of Pretty Much Nobody. But a few months ago, when that surge of new people had came, the current residents had been so overjoyed and willing to accept anybody. That was how Clarence had become deputy so quickly. Not that he was a bad fit, of course—he was just subject to a bit of bias. Joanna still couldn't help feeling some suspicion towards the newcomers, not really because they were suspicious, but simply because they did not know how things went in this town. They didn't know that the general store was closed every Wednesday evening, they didn't know that Samuel Colt could be a drunk and a genius at the same time, they didn't know that Miss Joanna Beth Harvelle rejected any and every man that tried to lure her off her high pedestal. They didn't know that you never went to the ravine on a weekend unless you wanted to risk your ears bleeding from the stationmaster's brother's horrifying fiddle practice. They were still  _new_. So if she ever wanted to go to the sheriff's office, the only thing stopping her would be Clarence. She didn't trust him not to laugh at her—a  _girl_? Reporting robbery plans? No, she just wanted attention, silly little angelica she was—but she was confident that Sheriff Mills knew her well enough to understand she didn't joke about things like that. His wife, Jody (there really were too many women in this town with J names), was also quite sensible and had won Joanna's trust from the moment they'd met. They'd had a son, but he'd died when he was very little, so they understood to a certain extent what Joanna felt about her father. That was another thing, actually—newcomers didn't understand who in this town was open and who in it was closed. Both the Mills were closed, no family talk, no idle chit-chat, no nonsense. Same with Ellen, and with Jessica's fiancé, Sam. Nobody knew a whole lot about Sam, truth be told. He'd just appeared out of nowhere one day, a good five or six years back. He was very smart, and he knew a thing or two about mechanics and fixing stuff. Some people thought he had a brother, some people thought he ran away, some people thought his family just didn't live in the area. General consensus was that both his parents were dead, though, and if he did have a brother, they hadn't corresponded in years. Joanna had once asked Jess about it, but she'd simply shaken her head.

Anyway, this internal debate she had going on—go see the sheriff and risk having to report what she'd heard to the deputy, or keep quiet and let experience teach them to be more careful—caused her a great amount of inexplicable anxiety throughout the day. She broke a glass at the saloon and kept mixing up the different bottles. And ran into a doorframe. That was unfortunate.

And she couldn't decide why she was so nervous in the first place. Joanna was not a nervous person in the least. Finally, she decided that even if they did turn her away and risk people's lives, it'd serve them right for not listening when they were given a tip.

She didn't even stop back at home after her shift was over, she just went straight to the sheriff's office before she changed her mind again. She entered without knocking, then realized that was rude, then turned around again to knock, then realized she was already there.

"Uh, madam? Can I help you?"

...damn.

She turned around slowly and hoped the deputy wouldn't recognize her, with her wide-brimmed hat covering her eyes, but she knew that he would, at least after she had to take it off. "Deputy Clarence, sir?"

"Yes, that's me," he said, without bothering to even take his boots off the desk. "Why, is something—" He stopped, then blinked. There it was. She could practically  _see_ the rusty wheels turning painstakingly in his brain. "Hang on a sec. Ain't you that angelica from ol' Colt's place yesterday? Does he know anythin' 'bout that bullet now?"

"No, sorry, sir," she said, taking off her hat and clutching it a bit tightly. Her heart was racing and she still couldn't tell why.  _Calm down_ , she told herself sternly, and loosened her grip on the hat. "Is Sheriff Mills in?"

He frowned at her. "You haven't heard?"

She swallowed. _Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no_ — "H-heard what?"

"The sheriff and his wife are out o' town," he explained. "They went to see some o' the missus' family in the Dakota territory. What do you need, miss?"

Joanna let out a sigh—they were okay, they were fine. On the other hand, with the deputy in charge...well, she'd work with it. People's lives were more way important than her discomfort. "I, um, I'd like to report a...uh..."

The deputy looked as though he didn't quite know what to think of this. "You wanna report something?" he asked, and she nodded. "Don't be so shy, miss, I ain't gonna bite."

She nodded again and took a deep breath. "Yesterday, I was taking a detour home through the cemetery," she said. "And I...I heard voices."

Clarence's eyebrows went up ever so slightly, but he said nothing. Joanna cleared her throat and continued.

"I heard voices, but they were definitely people, before you go calling me crazy. They were standing behind that big statue on the right side. You, uh, you know that man Mr. Colt says he saw coming into town? With the white horse?"

At this, she could tell Clarence was beginning to fight to take her seriously. "Yes, I do."

"Well, one o' them was him," she said.  _I sound like a fool, I sound like such an idiot_ — "Don't ask me how I know that. Anyway, he had somebody else with him, and they were talking about...um, robbery plans."

The deputy looked interested at this. "Robbery plans?" he echoed. "At our bank?"

"Yes, sir."

"When?"

"Tomorrow night. I don't know the exact time."

That got his attention, finally. He took his feet off the desk and sat up straight. "And when did you hear about this?"

"Yesterday evening," she said, resisting the urge to remind him she'd already told him that. He hadn't been listening.

There was a short pause in which Clarence bit at one of his fingers. "I'll put some extra men out," he said eventually. He sounded preoccupied again, and Joanna frowned.

"You don't believe me," she said flatly.

"No, no, it ain't that," he assured her quickly. "It's just, I'm afraid you mighta misheard."

She narrowed her eyes. "And what makes you think that?" she asked coldly, already knowing the answer.

"Well," he began slowly, sounding as if he was trying to decide the least offensive way to phrase what he was about to say, "women tend to, uh...be susceptible to a certain..." He trailed off. 

"A certain what?" she prompted.

He opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. "You're easily excitable, is what I mean to say. Not in a bad way or anythin'! Your judgment's just a tiny bit—"

Joanna had heard enough. She shook her head and turned around, and Clarence immediately began to apologize, but she wouldn't have any of it. This was stupid, why had she decided to come here in the first place? She should've left when she had the chance. He'd probably barely considered a word she said.

She didn't remember a whole lot of anything that happened next. She remembered Clarence promising to look into it, but she knew he wouldn't. She remembered telling him he was risking another Harper, and storming out without shutting the door, just to make him get up and close it. He hadn't even bothered standing up. Jesus, what a man. It'd serve him right if those two really did go through with it. If they didn't, well...Joanna would have to make a point of never looking the deputy in the face again.

 

* * *

 

It had been a fine Monday. The morning was cool and crisp, and though midday was hot as ever, it had begun to grow chilly early, around dinnertime. Around seven o'clock, the sun was dipping lower in the horizon but nowhere close to being set. The people of Sunrise were already tired from the days growing longer (except for the children, of course), and many were simply unequipped to deal with the heat, despite having lived with these brutal springs and summers for years. Some of the newcomers had come from the old States, and didn't even know what "summer" truly meant yet—and hell, Wyoming dry season was only just getting started. Some people just didn't like heat at all.

(Deputy Clarence was one of those people.)

It'd been a very long day at the bank as well. For some reason, everybody wanted their money on a Monday. The tellers were tired to say the least, and at least half of them groaned when they heard the door open one last time before closing. In walked a tall young man in his mid, late twenties or so. He had a lot of sunspots on his face, and wore a cowboy's hat, clearly not caring that he looked slightly foolish with it. He had a cocky smile on, looking so conceited and full of himself that it was nearly impossible not to stare. He lazily strode about halfway up to the front desk, stopped, and put his thumbs in his pockets, pushing back his coat and displaying what was strapped to his belt.

"Evenin', folks," he said charmingly, accent light, then pulled the pretty little gun out of its holster and twirled it once around his finger with the trigger guard. "My name's Dean Winchester. Remember it, okay?"

There was a brief, heavy silence. "S-sir?" stammered the man at the desk finally. "W-what is this, exactly?"

At that, he laughed, genuinely laughed, a sound that was rich and full and resonated through the room like a bell. "This, my good man?" he repeated cheerily. "Why, this is a holdup."

Then he lifted the gun skyward and fired.


	3. Adventuress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Come to Wyoming, we have no law enforcement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which the plot thickens! This is a backstory chapter, it was really fun to write, even though it took forever.

It took less than a week for Dean Winchester to become the most well-known, most feared person in Sunrise.

Of course, there weren't many feared people in Sunrise, but this was...this was extravagant. In a matter of days, he'd killed both the deputy and the sheriff, not to mention half a dozen other people that had seemingly done absolutely nothing wrong. The sheriff's wife had lit a shuck for the nearest town over, probably planned to go straight back to Dakota. Many people were surprised she wasn't followed, but Winchester only seemed interested in Sunrise. 

What was he even  _doing_  here? All he'd done was kill people, cut some ropes, and misplace the contents of a bank vault. He was crazy, end of story. Full-on crazy. He was a psychopath. Had some sort of god complex, and dragged that poor blue-eyed bastard around with him, granted he didn't seem to mind much. They were never seen without each other, Winchester and his unnamed accomplice. The second one was very quiet, maybe a mute, even, but the other was loud enough for the both of them. And crazy enough. Did I say that already? Crazy.

If they hadn't already, Joanna's plans to leave for the east flew out the damn window after those few terrifying days. She never went anywhere anymore without her gun, and knew for a fact that Ellen kept a hunting knife in her boot. Sam never let Jessica out of the house alone, and Mrs. Singer's poor nerves were absolutely raw. The only one in town that seemed unperturbed by the whole fiasco was—go figure—old Samuel Colt. Not that that was much comfort. In fact, it wasn't comfort at all! Never go asking a drunken gunmaker for comfort, you will only make it worse. Of course, Joanna had an awful tendency to think the worst was already upon her, no matter what the situation, so at this point she was convinced it could only get better. Winchester would get caught, somebody would do  _something_ , and she'd be able to leave again. It'd get better.

Needless to say, it didn't.

She was working her shift at the saloon the first time he came in—of  _course_ it was her shift. She was wiping down some glasses at the counter when somebody sat down in front of her. With her head down, she thought it was just any other person, but when she glanced up, she was so surprised that she gasped, and the glass fell from her hand. The force with which it hit the wooden countertop drove a crack through it all the way from the rim to the base. The person in front of her seemed surprised as well; he jumped and banged his knee. After that, however, there was naught but deathly silence, throughout the entire room. Everyone else had seen who just sat in front of Miss Harvelle now. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw somebody cross themselves.

"... _well_?" he said finally, and the tone of his voice made Joanna catch her breath. Had he almost... _stuttered_? He glanced over his shoulder, glaring at the people staring at them with what appeared to be some difficulty. He seemed nearly...human. As if being like this all the time actually took him some effort. "Get on with yourselves!"

There was another short pause, before all at once, the entire room returned to their conversations as if nothing had happened. But something _had_ happened, the air felt stiffer now, more tense. Winchester sighed and turned back to Joanna, and his act was back on. "What you got?" he asked vaguely.

She bit her lip; she could see the look in his eye, he wasn't going to let her leave. He was a flirt, no doubt. She'd seen enough to know. "Whatever you like, Mr. Winchester," she responded carefully.

He chuckled to himself, but Joanna had no idea what was funny. "I suppose two in the afternoon's a bit early for a whiskey, huh."

She swallowed. If he was going to do this to her, she was going to make him uncomfortable too. "And yet, here we are," she said lightly as the ducked beneath the counter to retrieve a bottle. 

She saw his head jerk up at those words, recognizing them from the night before the robbery, then drop back down when he realized that no, she couldn't have heard him. That wasn't that odd of a coincidence. Joanna smiled to herself as she uncorked the bottle and poured its golden liquid into the glass she'd cracked a moment ago, not bothering to tell him it was broken as she handed it to him with the sharp side facing him. She thought he was going to down it in one, but surprisingly, he took a long, slow sip before setting the glass down again, and—

" _Ow_!" he gasped, putting a finger to his lip, which had begun to bleed. "What the—?"

She forced herself not to smile again. "Oh, my goodness, I'm so sorry, sir!" she exclaimed breathily, taking the glass from him and examining it. "I hadn't realized it broke!"

He just scowled and pressed his knuckle to the cut; he didn't yell at her, though. He didn't shoot her that  _dumb bitch_ look, he didn't berate her for her carelessness. Either he was too tired, or he didn't really want to.

Interesting.

She got him another glass and filled it, but as she started to turn away, he reached out, quicker than she could register, and grabbed her wrist. She inhaled sharply, but forced herself to stay quiet—she didn't want another scene.

"M-mr. Winchester, sir?" she whispered, heart racing. On any other occasion, she'd have pulled away and given the man a taste of her sharp tongue. But on any other occasion it was unlikely the man in question was stark raving mad.

For a moment, he was frozen, like he could barely understand what he'd just done himself. Then he let go of her wrist and cleared his throat awkwardly. Where on earth had all his charisma gone?

"Sir?" she repeated, afraid to leave without knowing he wouldn't go crazy.

Finally,  _finally_ , he asked, "What's your name?"

"M-my name?" she stammered. "Joanna, sir."

"Joanna," he echoed, as if it meant something to him. "Do they call you Jo?"

She blinked. "Um, no, sir, they don't. Or they just never have, I guess. Why, sir, do you—"

"Stop callin' me 'sir,' will ya?" he interrupted, sounding tired. "Why's everybody in this goddamn place so afraid o' me?"

She gave a shaky laugh, unsure if he was joking. "Well, you did shoot pretty much our entire police force, Mr. Winchester," she offered.

"Welcome to Wyoming," he muttered, and downed his whiskey. "You like it here, Jo?"

She shrugged. "Been here my entire life, I'm not fit to say."

"Sure you are," he said carelessly. "You're jus' not allowed to compare it to other places."

"Oh."

"So do you like it?"

"I guess so. It's a little boring. Or, was. It's pretty hot, too. And the North still isn't having us, so we're just a territory, we ain't got no real rights."

He tipped his head slightly to the side, a gesture Joanna recognized from his blue-eyed friend. "You're for the North then, Jo?" he said. "Against slavery, I mean. Not jus' because you think they're more likely to win."

"Yes, against slavery," she agreed. "Why, where you from?"

He snorted. "Hell, probably," he said, shaking his head. "My folks never could make a proper decision."

"Border state, then," she decided. "Missouri?"

He gave her a long look before eventually saying, "It's not important."

She opened her mouth to protest but was cut off by Ellen.

"Joanna!" she shouted. "We have  _customers_!"

"Sorry, Momma!" she called back, then hurriedly refilled Winchester's glass.

"See you 'round, Jo," he said with a nod.

 _Or something_ , she thought to herself, running to wait another person without bothering to respond. It was a few minutes before her brain actually registered the fact that she'd just had a rather pleasant conversation with a murdering lunatic.

 

* * *

 

The next day, the  _someone's watching_ feeling from more than a week ago came back, except this time, she figured out who was watching her within the next few hours: it was Winchester. She didn't think he had done it the time before as well, though, because he wasn't subtle in the least. Joanna didn't know if even half the times she saw him in random public places were coincidental, but he was a regular at the saloon now, and she was pretty sure it was solely to talk to her. It took him less than two weeks to memorize her shift schedule, which was not only creepy, but properly terrifying. Despite learning through those visits that he could be human as anybody else (he made her call him by his first name now), it didn't change the fact that he was still indeed a murderer. He'd still shot all those people. Even if he had educated opinions and an odd fondness for pie and something so very  _normal_ about him, he was still...well,  _bad_. He was a bad guy. And a  _terrible_ flirt, and a bit inconsiderate sometimes, and incredibly tolerant of alcohol, and very strangely affectionate towards his blue-eyed friend, and—

And Joanna knew more about him than she ever would've willingly wanted to.

In all honesty, he was kind of obnoxious. She began changing her shifts, and taking different, more roundabout routes around town (though never through the graveyard), but somehow he managed to find her anyway. At first, she just went with it—psychopaths do weird things—but people began talking, and one evening as she was walking home from Samuel's house, she finally got angry. It was hot and sticky, she was tired and in no mood for anybody's shit. Which made a perfect time for the murderer to jump in.

This time, he literally ran into her and almost knocked her over, similar to how Blue-eyes had the first time she'd seen him. "What the—?" she gasped, before righting herself and seeing what had happened. "Oh my  _God_ , Dean—"

"Sorry, sorry!" he spluttered, sounding as though he already regretted this, and for good reasons. "Sorry, I was—I was jus'—"

"I'm really gettin' sick o' this, Dean," she snapped harshly, her uneducated Western accent strengthening as her patience weakened. She resumed walking, so quickly that he had to run a pace or two to catch up. "You gotta stop followin' me around, you hear? People have started talkin' 'bout this, and all that'll get either of us is trouble."

"Like that matters at this point," he muttered.

"It matters to me!" she retorted. "I just wanna know _why_ , okay? Don't you have a  _life_ or somethin'?"

He glanced at her with an expression full of what she fleetingly thought was hurt, before saying, "'Course I got a life, that's what I'm doin' here. Never thought maybe this  _is_ my life, Jo?"

She snorted. "What, murdering innocent people and trailing random girls until you get 'em to like you?"

He blinked. "Like me?" he echoed dimly. "Do you like me, Jo?"

She groaned in frustration. He was so easily  _distractible_. "That's not the point!" she insisted. "I just want to know what you're here for. Why did you kill all those people, cut the well ropes, break into the bank?"

"Well, for one thing, I didn't cut those ropes."

This statement surprised Joanna so much that she actually stopped walking. "Wait, what?"

He sighed. "Your friend Mr. Harper did," he explained, without explaining anything at all, really. "That's why I shot him."

For a moment, she simply stared. "Alright," she said slowly. She began walking again. "You've got a god complex  _and_ you're delusional. Perfect. Perfect!"

"I'm not delusional!" he said, again seeming rather hurt.

"Yes, you are," she said. "You're delusional and you've told yourself something to get rid of your guilt so often that you've started believing it. I can't believe this. You're crazy. People think _I'm_ crazy, Jesus Christ."

"I can prove it!"

Pause.

"You can...prove it," she repeated, frowning at him.

"Yes!" he said fervently. "This  _is_ my life, Jo, this is what I do. I don't kill innocent people, I don't cut well ropes, and I don't—well, I guess I did break into the bank, but—"

"What are you saying, Dean?"

"That I do it for a reason!" He ran a hand over his face, tugging at his hair in frustration. "We don't jus'  _do_ things, me and Castiel, we have an end goal."

At this, Joanna was not entirely sure what to say. Option one was probably another "you're crazy," and option two was something along the lines of,  _Castiel? What the fuck kinda name is_ Castiel _?_ Instead, all that came out was, "End goal?"

He nodded. 

"Well, what is it?"

"I can't talk about it in public."

"This is Sunrise, we don't have enough people for public."

He was silent for a moment. "Then come with me and Cas," he suggested. "Our camp's a few miles southeast onto the plains."

She almost laughed at that. "Ah, yes," she agreed, "leave town completely alone except for a murderer and a—"

" _I am not a murderer_!"

Joanna gasped as she was forced to an abrupt halt that almost knocked her over; Dean had grabbed her elbow. He was glaring at her with an expression that looked powerful and righteous and terrifying. 

_He's not going to kill me. He's not going to kill me._

After what seemed like ages, he let go of her arm and looked away. "You think people's deaths sit that easy with me?" he asked bitterly. "Of course you do. I'm crazy. I'm a murderer. Well, I got news for you, little girl: you're right. They do. Because they deserved it. They had it coming. And I will not be held guilty for murders I didn't commit. I did this hellhole of a world a favor, I did it for your good. I've always done it for your good, and look what you lot give me in return. Did you say thanks when I shot Harper, Jo? No, you didn't. Because you don't know. None of you, none of you know  _anything_ —"

"Okay!" she exclaimed, still frightened, finally finding a place to jump in and interrupt him. "Okay, I get it, I get it, I'm sorry! Just please calm down!" _  
_

He glowered at her a moment more, then shut his mouth and turned away. They stood in silence for longer than was comfortable, until Dean finally asked, "How old are you, Jo?"

Joanna took one full second to comprehend this question, then responded, "Nineteen."

"Nineteen!" he marveled. "You're just a little kid. What am I doing with myself? Scaring kids like that."

"I'm not a kid," she said with a frown, not angry anymore so much as confused. "I've spent my whole life with a drunkard who gave me a gun instead of a doll and a widowed mother who keeps a dagger in her boot. I was never a kid, Dean." She paused, then added, "You don't seem like you ever were either."

"Aw, no," he said, making a face and shaking his head, "don't you give me any o' that, we are not here to talk about my life problems, you hear? I don't participate in sappy shit like that, save it, missy."

She held up her hands in surrender. "Sorry, just saying. Are we done with this now, or are you gonna keep me here past sunset?"

He shrugged. "Depends. Are you gonna let me and Cas explain what we're doing in this godforsaken town o' yours, or am I gonna have to keep followin' you around like this?"

"That also depends. Why do you want me to know?"

"Because I think you can help."

She frowned. "Promise you won't kill anybody else until you explain everything."

He thought for a moment, then asked, "Gravely injure?"

" _Dean_."

"Kidding! I promise. I also promise that everybody I shot absolutely deserved it, and deserved worse too."

"I'll be the judge of that."

"So you'll come with us then?"

"I never said  _that_ , I just said I'd let you explain yourselves."

He smirked. "Good as. Can you follow cardinal directions?"

Joanna raised an eyebrow, in an expression that said,  _Do you_ think _I can follow cardinal directions?_

"Good. It's a little far, and that creaky old barrel you call a horse is not fit for the ride, so you'll take mine. I'm gonna leave her at the water trough out the back of the saloon before your shift ends tomorrow. She's a cherry mustang and her name is Bellona, and she won't let you ride her unless you say ' _jus in bello_ ' in her ear. That's her code, and before you ask, it's Latin. All the times after that she'll recognize you. Okay?"

 _How the_ hell _does he_ already _know when my new shift is? And damn, smart horse._ "Okay," she agreed, pushing her questions aside. "So whose horse are you gonna ride?"

"Cas'."

"And whose horse is Cas gonna ride?"

Dean cracked a dry grin, as if he was sharing a joke with himself. "Irrelevant," he said, waving his hand. "Will you remember how to get there if I tell you right now?"

 

* * *

 

If anything positive at all came out of the next day, Joanna decided that she liked Winchester's horse.

Bellona was, indeed, a cherry mustang, as her owner rather dramatically put it. She seemed almost as if she could understand what Joanna said to her, eying her suspiciously when she she heard her code from someone other than her master, and tossing her mane when she was told she was beautiful, as if to say,  _Damn straight I am._  She had a personality, unlike plenty of the animals Joanna had encountered previously. She vaguely wondered what Blue-eyes' ( _I really have to start calling him Castiel_ ) horse was like as she mounted, recalling Dean's odd comment before about changing horses, then decided it wasn't important at the moment. She had to get out of town relatively quickly, or Ellen would see that she was, well...riding somebody else's horse. All she had told her was that she and Jessica were heading out for a little bit, and had only very narrowly escaped being forced to make up details. At this point, she could only hope that her mother and her friend didn't see each other out and about until she came back. She wouldn't be too long. It was about six, and she planned to be back around eight at the latest. She'd stayed out plenty later with Jessy before.

Following the directions she'd been given proved to be a bit more difficult than she'd anticipated, as she'd never been very far out onto the plains, but she got there after a solid half hour. They'd made their camp at the base of a rock overhang, where the flatland suddenly dropped downwards in what was almost a rockslide. Joanna could see their dead fire and woven blankets, but neither of them were there. She dismounted Bellona, but before she could pull the reins back over her head, the horse jerked away and dashed up the rocky hillside.

"Bellona!" she shouted, dismayed—she tried to follow her, but, well...rock-climbing in a dress, even a relatively short one, was not the easiest. She tripped and tore her stockings, cursed indelicately, then hoisted herself up to the flat ground overhead. "Bellona, what are you—"

Oh.

For a moment, Joanna simply stood there, her mouth open, her hair a mess, and her knee bleeding. Before her stretched a seemingly endless expanse of plains, with tall, yellow-green grass waving gently in the wind, a sky even bluer than Castiel's eyes overhead, and low, rolling purple mountains on the horizon. Bellona, she now realized, had not gone far: she was excitedly prancing around another horse, one the same color as the clouds, as if to say hello. Tilting her head backwards and shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand, she could see a bird of prey circling overhead, undoubtedly scouting its next meal. Above it, clouds that looked like they'd been swept onto azure canvas with snow-colored paint moved lazily with the wind, sparse and meager enough to never fully block out the light. 

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

Joanna gasped and jumped about a mile; Castiel had practically appeared out of thin air at her side. "Oh, um...yes, it is. I've never really been out this far before."

"I love it here," he said quietly. "There's so much open space...Dean doesn't like it though. Says it makes him feel uncomfortable, with nothing all around for miles. Exposed, I guess." He paused, then added, "He was the one who wanted to sleep under that overhang."

Joanna was not particularly sure why he was telling her this, but found it almost touching that he already trusted her enough to say these things. They seemed kind of personal. "I feel the same way," she admitted, "about being exposed and all, but it's a nice change. I'd rather have too much space to move around in than none at all, which is what you get in Sunrise. What about you, where you from?"

"Illinois, but my family moved to Missouri when I was little."

She raised her eyebrows. "Illinois, really? Watcha doin' all the way out here, then?"

He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could say anything, somebody interrupted.

"Hey, you two, quit flirting and get down here, I got some things for ya!" called Dean's voice from below the outcropping.

"Yeah, says the biggest flirt on the planet," Joanna muttered, making Castiel smile, before hazardously working her way back down the rocks, trying not to slip as they moved underneath her boots. Blue-eyes took a few steps down, then practically leapt off onto the flat ground below, as if he'd done it a thousand times. Or was a cat or something. Possibly both.

"Jo!" exclaimed Dean delightedly as soon as she righted herself, thrusting a burlap knapsack at her. "Hold that."

"What the—what  _is_ this?" she spluttered. "It weighs a ton!"

"Definitely not anythin' illegal," he assured her, with only the slightest hint of sarcasm in his voice. "Cas, we still have bread, right?"

"No, we ran out this morning."

"Oh. Well, I didn't get any. Jo, did you untack my horse?"

"No, she ran away as soon as I dismounted. Can I put this  _down_?"

"Yes, Cas can have it. What happened to your knee?"

She set the bag down heavily. "I tripped on the goddamn rock wall, what do you  _think_ happened to my knee?"

He grinned, then turned around, out from under the outcropping, and proceeded uphill as if he were climbing stairs and taking the steps two at a time.

"Is he  _really_ always like that?" she wondered incredulously, after a moment of silence.

"Only on good days," responded Cas. "Normally he's a bit gruff."

"What counts as a good day?" she asked. "Because as far as I know the only things he's done lately are break into a bank and kill some people."

Castiel frowned, and at first Joanna was afraid she'd offended him, but then he said, "That's true, but I believe that he is pleased with the amount of progress we are making as of late. And your arrival is contributing to that. He is eager to..." He hesitated. "He is eager to work with you, I think. He knows how well you can work a gun, and that you are sensible and do not ignore facts. It was unlikely anybody else would believe him if he were to tell them what he was doing."

Joanna took a moment to absorb this. She meant to ask something about the last comment, but instead, ended up saying, "How does he know I can work a gun?"

"I told him."

She opened her mouth to ask how  _he_ knew it, then shut her mouth as her brain put two and two together. "So you were the one watching me for all that time?" she said.

Cas nodded. "I do apologize for that, although it was rather necessary at the time. We needed an insider."

She shook her head. "You gotta stop talking in riddles, man," she told him, "I can't understand a thing you're saying."

"Dean will explain," he assured her. "Come on, let's go find him."

 _Ugh, I_ just _got down from there, you're making me climb up again?_ she thought crossly, but all she said was, "Okay."

The second time ascending the steep, rocky hill was easier than the first, though admittedly, still difficult. They found Dean a little way's away, Bellona's saddle and blanket on his arm and her bridle and girth over his shoulder. He was straightening her mane with the fingers of his free hand and talking to the horse in a tone low enough that Joanna couldn't make out any words—actually, he sounded almost like he was crooning at her, which Joanna found rather sweet. The white horse was a few meters to the side, grazing.

"Dean is very fond of Bellona," explained Cas as they approached, walking at a slow pace so as to not interrupt. "His first horse got shot, so he's a little overprotective."

"What was his first horse like?" Joanna asked.

"She was black, and her name was Impa."

"Impa?" she echoed. "That's an interesting name. Sounds a bit like the name of a sort of deer I read about once." She paused, then pointed at the white stallion. "That one's yours?"

Castiel nodded. "His name is Thursday. Dean!"

Dean glanced over his shoulder and nearly dropped the girth. "Yeah?"

"You brought Miss Harvelle here for a reason, didn't you?"

"Please, it's Joanna," she interrupted, then found herself wondering why she was being polite to a criminal. "Or Jo, I guess."

"I'm comin', I'm comin'," said Dean before Castiel could respond, "jus' gimme a second." He adjusted his grip on Bellona's tack, then walked over and (to Joanna's horror) unceremoniously dropped it all over the edge of the rock overhang. "Okay, where were we?"

 

* * *

 

Almost ten minutes later found the three of them sat around the dead campfire with dried fruit, which was being eaten, of course, and a bottle of alcohol, which Joanna had requested to use on the gash on her knee, but was now being drank from by Dean (who insisted on sitting with his back to the rock wall).

"So, an explanation?" Jo prompted the two men as she wrapped a cloth bandage around her leg. "I was promised an explanation."

"We're gettin' there, calm yourself," Dean said, then took another swig from the bottle before handing it to Castiel, who simply held it. "Where do you want us to start?"

She shrugged. "The beginning? What kind o' question is that?"

Dean sighed. "Be a little more specific, you could want my whole goddamn life story for all I know."

"How about she asks questions and then you answer them until we find someplace to start?" suggested Cas reasonably.

"That's fine," she said.

"Okay," agreed Dean, "but if we're gonna do that, Jo, you should know that this is really more about Cas than it is about me."

Joanna glanced up from bandaging her leg, surprised. "Really?" she said. "You're the one shooting my townspeople and this is all about  _him_?"

"Well, not  _all_ ," he admitted. "But most." He grabbed the bottle from his friend's hand, took another drink, then said, "Alright. Go ahead. Ask away."

There was a long pause as Joanna thought about what she wanted to say. She had more questions than she could count, and, well, he was right—"the beginning" could mean a lot of things. Finally, she decided. "Where are you from?"

Dean frowned at her slightly. "Is it important?"

"Depends on your answer," she said. "You wouldn't tell me that day at the saloon, so I assume so, yes."

He laughed through his teeth, sounding less than amused. "You remember that? Ah, who am I kidding, of course you do. Well, Cas here's from Pontiac, Illinois. Pretty new town, apparently, only fifty years old or so—"

" _Dean_ ," said Joanna, exasperated. He was stalling.

"Right, right, sorry." He took a deep breath, with an _I'm gonna regret this_ look on his face, before saying, "Well, I'm from Kansas."

She stared at him blankly.

"Kansas?" he repeated warily. "Bleedin' Kansas?"

Still silence.

"I don't think she knows, Dean," said Castiel unnecessarily.

"Yeah, clearly."

"What's so special about Kansas?" Jo asked. "I mean, not that there's anything special about Wyoming, but—"

"We've got our own miniature _war_ goin' on is what's special about Kansas!" exclaimed Dean. "Have you guys  _really_ not heard about this? It's been goin' on for  _years_ now, before this whole thing even  _started_ —" _  
_

" _What_ has?"

"The border wars!" he said, sounding bitter. "You know how most states have some votin' and a civilized government conference to decide what they think of slavery? Well, in good ol' Kansas, we fight it out  _bloody_ , we go straight to violence and hope somethin' productive happens!"

"Dean," muttered Castiel warningly.

He took another deep breath and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Jus' so you know," he said, "we got involved with some towns in Missouri, too, and, well...a lot of spies have come out of the whole thing. Please do not ask me how you know I am also not a Confederate spy, 'cause after you hear everything I have to say, you'll have to decide for yourself."

After a couple seconds, Joanna realized she was staring. "Oh, um...alright then. Bleeding Kansas. Possible spy. What about Blue-eyes here?"

"We met in Missouri," said Dean. "Well, we'd met before then, but we'd never spoken. I was helpin' smuggle a family of slaves across the border—"

"You're a member of the Underground Railroad?" she blurted, not caring that she was constantly interrupting. "That's amazing!"

He didn't accept the praise, but merely said, "How've you heard o' the Underground Railroad but not Bleedin' Kansas? Anyway, I was helpin' some slaves, and Cas here was makin' an Express stop by his old home."

"Express stop?" Joanna repeated. "As in...Pony Express?"

There was a short pause. Dean looked like he was restraining himself from smiling with great difficulty.

Finally, Cas said quietly, as though he was embarrassed, "I like horses."

"I like horses too," she assured him, and he looked a little less flustered. "Is that all, then?"

"No," said Dean. "After Cas came to Missouri, he lived by this big plantation, owner by the name of Elias Finch. We call him the phoenix, as a sort of code, I guess."

"Lemme guess—Confederate?"

"What else? Anyway, this man Finch, well, he was bad news to say the least, even back then. I shouldn't say 'was,' he's still up and at it. He has a huge espionage force for the South, and way he treats his slaves is..."

"Awful," said Castiel. "It's awful."

"Why, what does he do?" asked Joanna.

"Burns them," he responded, the tone of his voice fetching him a look of concern from Dean, then for some reason, began rolling the sleeve of his shirt up. "With hot irons and things. I used to have a friend who worked on his plantation when I was little...his name was Raphael. One day Finch found us playing, and he burned me too."

He held out his arm for Joanna to see, and she nearly gasped. Right below his elbow, she could see, was a two-inch-long, fire iron-shaped white scar, that looked like if you tried hard enough, it would still hurt when you touched it. "I never came back after that, of course," he continued. "I can only imagine what he did to Raphael."

There was a rather uncomfortable silence after that, before Dean, in a weak attempt to lighten the rapidly deteriorating mood, said, "And he shot my horse!"

"Impa, right?" said Jo, seizing the opportunity to change the conversation, still horrified at Castiel's story. "Why?"

"No idea," he admitted. "That's pretty much it, though."

"What is?"

"Your explanation."

"What!" she exclaimed. "Are you joking, you haven't explained anything! Why'd you kill all those people?"

"Oh." He laughed a little bit. "I said Finch had plenty of spies, right?"

"Yes?"

"They were all his men. Or women."

For a moment, Joanna didn't quite believe him. "But they couldn't  _all_ be," she protested; then, a split-second later, "Could they?"

"Did you really not notice that everybody I killed was new to Sunrise?" he said. "A couple months ago, the Nebraska territory had a massive influx of random people, coming from every which way, specifically near the southeast. Am I correct?"

"You're saying all those people were Finch's men? They were Confederates? How did you know?"

"Because back where we come from, they're  _wanted_ , Jo, they're threats and they're real. Sunrise has never seen a true day of war in its sorry little life, I can't expect any of you to recognize that foreigners aren't always good."

She frowned, thinking hard about what she was hearing. "Then why'd they come here in the first place?" she asked. "What does some Southern plantation owner want with Sunrise?"

"Dunno that either," Dean admitted, "but whatever the reason, my job is taking down outlaws, and that's what I came here to do. Harper, the deputy, the two tellers at the bank—wanted, the lot of 'em." He stopped, then glanced at Castiel and laughed. "Guess that's us now too, huh."

"I suppose so," agreed Cas.

Another pause.

"So, Joanna," said Dean eventually. "What'll it be?"

She blinked. "What'll what be?"

"Your answer," he said. "You comin' with us or not?"

She swallowed. "Do I have to decide right now?"

For some reason, Dean smirked at her. "Oh, I think you've already done so. I think you decided the second you saw Cas' burn. Come on, Jo—don't you wanna slay a phoenix?"

It was at this point that Joanna suddenly remembered her original plans to run away and join the Union. Had anything really changed, now that she knew Winchester's motive? She could still go, she could still do that, knowing that nobody innocent would be hurt. She believed them, and if she believed them, there was no way she couldn't help.

"I...yeah," she said finally. "I guess I do."

For a split-second, Dean looked almost surprised, even though he'd had complete confidence in his words a moment before. "Really? You'll come with us?"

"Yes," she said firmly. "I will. I believe you."

"That's great!" he said. "I know you've got your own gun and your own gear, but  _damn_ , you're gonna need a new horse. Can't go fightin' the Confederacy without a proper horse."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Castiel smile, but when she turned to smile back, it was gone. "Can't do very well anything without a proper horse," she agreed.

"Aren't you nervous?" asked Cas.

She raised her eyebrows. "Nervous? You underestimate me."

The corners of his mouth turned up a tiny bit, and Dean laughed. "O' course she ain't nervous, Cas," he said. "Why, she's an adventuress! Ain't that right, Jo?"

At this, Joanna's jaw dropped, and Castiel looked nearly horrified. "What a load o' bosh!" she exclaimed, offended even though she knew he was joking. "Do I  _look_ like a prostitute to you, Dean Winchester?!"

Which only made him laugh harder.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so excited for where this is going, guys! I already have so many notes taken on it, I've got some good ideas. Hopefully they'll work. I'll try not to be too inconsistent with my posting, but I can't make any promises. If you have any feedback, please leave it in the comments! Thank you!


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